Category: Blog

Windows and kitchen door finally complete

We ordered our windows from Giovanni Tambellini, our local falegname, in November last year (well in advance of starting the work on the house). We ordered our kitchen door from him in May (only once we had permission to open the old arch).

The first of our windows and our kitchen door were installed mid July (when the external renovations at the rear of the house were complete). The last of our windows were installed at the end of August (when the external renovations at the front of the house were complete).

At the start of October all the cornici were ready. Each one made by hand as no two windows were exactly the same. Today, we finally heard from Giovanni that all the cornici were in place and received some pictures.

That’s a milestone for us and a year from start to finish.

Next mosquito screens, external shutters and some iron work.

Piano, piano.

Storm damage

Tuscany has been having a lot of rainfall and high winds. During the storms, one of the branches of the hazel tree was blown down into Francesco’s garden.

Dominic’s gardener, Abramo, will remove it and take a look at our diseased tree.

Apparently, Francesco and Maria Grazia are concerned about the size of the two pines and hope we can prune them. Top pruning is not good for pines, but we’ll see what Dominic’s tree surgeons say next year.

Pool quote received

Today, we received a first cut of the quote from Michele. Gino needs to verify that it meets the partameters of the design we have permission for and there are some omissions that need to be included (hand rail, shower).

The quote actually comprises quotes from three separate companies: Michele’s, the excavator and the pool supplies company.

Michele has opted to mix his own concrete rather than get a delivery. I think there are a couple of reasons for this as our drive is not wide enough to accomodate a cement mixer:

  1. The distance from the road to the pool location.
  2. The road would have to be closed for the duration of the delivery (requiring permission from the comune),

The good news is that the total compares favourably to the quote we already have from Klodian.

Swimming pool – change of horses

Following our disagreements with Klodian about the washing of the facades, our confidence in his honesty and fairness was dented enough for us to decide that we wanted to use a different contractor for the swimming pool. We also had concerns about his attention to detail and quality of finishing.

Today, we met with Michele Gigli and Gino to discuss our pool project and to find out when Michele would be available to do the work. Michele was recommended to us by David and Carol and created their swimming pool. He did the work on our second floor bathroom to a good standard.

We expected we’d have to wait till next year as Michele is always busy. He suggested he could start mid-April or at the start of May and that the job would take about 2 months. That gives us a pool by June(ish) which seems reasonable.

We agreed that he will return with the guy he wanted to use for the excavations and someone from his preferred swimming pool supplies company. Once he has their input, he’ll put together a quote.

It seems that you can do swimming pool work in one of two ways:

  1. Engage a swimming pool company who will use the builder of their choice
  2. Engage a builder who will use a swimming pool company of their choice

We are happy to go with option 2 and to give the work to Michele provided his quote isn’t ridiculously high. We have the quote from Klodian to compare with as a sanity check. One big plus for us is that we will build on our relationship with a builder who lives in our village.